Lots of good things lately!  Mary graduated!  Dad turned 79!  And we will have our 52nd anniversary this week!

Mary graduated from the NRG Stadium in downtown Houston.  There were 600 graduates and lots and lots of friends and relatives.  It was a really nice graduation with short, interesting speeches and Mary crossing the stage early in the program.  Jon bought her flowers that thrilled her.  She kept saying, I feel so special!  And of course she certainly was.

Afterward, we drove around (since we were already downtown) looking at where Jon works and where Mary will go to school next year:  The University of Houston.  She will be in the dorms.  It is a huge school!  Then Jon took us all (their family, the elder Barneys, and us) to a Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant Mary had chosen where I tasted Pho (pronounced Fuh) for the first time which is a really tasty soup with veggies.  We had ordered so much food we all had it again for dinner on Sunday.  And it was still delicious.

Friday Jon treated us all to dinner for Dad's birthday.  Dad chose the Tin Roof Barbecue for dinner.  Everyone was really pleased with the food and the live entertainment.  It was raining like crazy but that didn't dampen the good food and good company.  Sorry my pictures are fuzzy, but you get the idea.

And look what Lara gave us!  We killed our mixer trying to make divinity.  It just gave up.  ( I was later told that you should never try to make divinity on a humid day!)  So we needed a new mixer and since it's close to our anniversary I thought we could finally get a good one, but she had one already that she wasn't using and she gave it to us!!  What a treat!  It makes me so happy to finally have a KitchenAid mixer!!  We plan to celebrate our anniversary by going to see Jungle Book and eating at Jason's Deli.  We will go after the temple on Wednesday since we will be busy the rest of the week here and there.

Today is Memorial Day and we are taking it easy around here.  We will go watch the kids swim later today and then maybe take a nap.  :o)  It's nice being old.

We had a happy surprise a couple weeks ago when Kathy and Grace came to visit!  What fun to get to see them and hang out together!  We drove around and explored different places around here that we haven't been before, watched movies, watched the lizards and squirrels on the deck, talked and talked and talked.  A perfect visit!  Feel free to drop in on us anytime all of you!  I wish I had taken some pictures.  I don't think of it till it's too late.

The man has been keeping busy around here.  Today he's out mowing the lawn and sprucing up the front.  His grass stolons are taking hold and looking really good.  They may fill in that piece of lawn by the end of spring.  The trees are all leafing out and looking green and pretty.  I love the green and the sunshine on the trees and grass.  He also fixed the gutter along the garage so that there won't be water pooling in it to encourage mosquitoes.  He still goes to the peanut butter factory every week to either help with production or clean the equipment.  This is a one year mission he has been assigned.  He enjoys it.  

We are still serving in the temple every Wednesday and it's beginning to become a part of us.  I have heard people extolling the temple before and I didn't understand how they felt, but now it's beginning to make sense to me.  I got to serve this Wednesday on our regular shift, then subbed for other ladies Thursday, Friday and then again on Saturday this week.  I was tired by the end of the week, but I had such a sweet peace after being there that long.  And the very best part of that service was that I got to help with the initiatory for a young woman getting her own endowment before leaving for her mission.  What a supernal blessing for me to be able to do that for her!  I can't express how much I love being able to do what we do.  

Last week was also the awards week for the high school.  Mary received a National Merit Scholarship award.  She is second from the left.

She also got to play in the last concert for the year in the orchestra.  They played good music--which means music I like :o)--and then they showed pictures of all the graduating seniors on the big screen.  It was a nice evening.  The teacher/conductor is very good, but he graciously gave credit to the junior high music teachers and rightly so.  Some of our Beehives in jr high can really play beautifully.  Two of them brought their viola and violin to our little class talent show and were just playing around afterwards in an impromptu duet together and they were excellent!  I was truly in awe of their skill.

Sam also got an award.  He received the male sophomore class merit award.  We are happy for him and how he exemplifies so many good qualities.

And Sarah is once again involved in swimming.  She has practice every evening after school and swim meets every Saturday.  It's time consuming for her and for Lara but she loves being with her friends.  She has improved her technique and her swim time this year already.  We get to watch her in her events and cheer her on!

Da is still doing well in her reading.  We are more than half way through the book and she is remembering most of what she is learning.  She still confuses b and p.  But I can't even imagine trying to decipher her language.  It just looks like curlicues to me.  I think she is doing remarkably well.  Her goal is to get her driver's license.  When she finishes the book lessons we will get a driver's manual and work through that.  She is already trying to read notices and signs she sees around her and that is a big step forward.  

We are now looking forward to the middle of June when we will get to visit with the Evanses and Erin in Illinois!  What a happy anticipation!  I really do love being us right here and right now!

Yay!  We did get to go visit with Adam again and had a great time.  It was so good to see him and it was fun to visit with Lara along the way.  The trip seemed much shorter this time.  We had lunch at a Sweet Tomatoes in town there.  
I love that he got to come.  I wouldn't mind if this is a recurring thing for a long time.

In other news, my wonderful bentwood rocker finally bit the dust.  I sat in it and leaned back and the frame split.  :o(  Made me very sad.  I like to sit in it in the front room and look outside while Dad is on the sofa.  We talk and make plans and the other sofa seems so much farther away, somehow.  I was bemoaning the loss and the man said, why don't we get another one?  So we shopped at the Goodwills and looked online but they were nonexistent or too expensive.  So he said, why don't you try Craig's list?  I did and there were two!!  One for $45 and one for $95.  I texted them both and put the amount on the contact name line so I would know which was communicating with us.  I got a text from the $45 and we went to see it and paid them the $45, put it in the car and drove away.  We got down the street and I got a text saying she had asked $95 and we only gave her less than half!  I guess I got the numbers mixed up when I entered the phone numbers because it was truly a beautiful chair, just as the ad described the more expensive one, so we went back and paid her the rest.  We were lucky we had enough between us to pay it.  But we got a beautiful chair and are very happy.

The man had to cut up the broken one to put it in the trash.  It was a fine friend and it made me sad to see it go.

And now we have another one that also makes me happy.  She said she paid over $200 when she bought it new and it does seem to be well made, not just a WalMart special.

Another thing that I am happy about this week is that I thought I had gotten toenail fungus when we girls all went to get pedicures at Thanksgiving.  I finally took off the polish a week ago and saw white spots on my big toenails!  They looked just like the beginning of fungus I looked up on the web.  Made me VERY unhappy.  I got an appointment right away and got the results back yesterday and the dr said whatever it is, it's not toenail fungus.  He didn't say what it was, but when I was there in the office he said sometimes pressure on the toes can cause similar things.  Whew!!  Dodged another bullet.  I REALLY don't want that stuff.  So the plan is to keep the toes out and dry all summer.  NO closed toed shoes.  And no more pedicures!  It's always a gamble and I don't want to take that chance at this stage of life.

Yesterday the man had volunteered to sub for a brother in the temple and so I went along to do some things while he was there.  I did some sealings, two endowments and some initiatories for our family names. It was a relaxing, sweet, beautiful day.  It felt luxurious to just go and do whatever I wanted to do and have the time with no rush or expectations.  One of the endowment sessions was for a girl who was getting married soon and I realized it was a girl whose parents are in our ward!  Her mom is probably Lara's best friend.  What a surprise.  I thought it was pretty special that the brother conducting the session was the grandfather of the bride to be.  And obviously it was arranged that way.  I had to think about it a while.  You would have realized it right away, right?

As far as the Reading classes are going with Da, Kathy recommended a book called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons or something like that and I got it and it makes me happy.  I am using it with Da now and I feel much more confident.  I feel sure she will be able to read in a few months and I didn't feel that before.  It was such slow going with not much progress.  And I was unsure about how to introduce more sounds as we went along.  This book gives me a script and all I have to do is follow it and it works well.  Da is smart and very cooperative so I expect success.

Now that it's warm weather the man is working in the yard more.  We took out one of our front trees and he planted stolons of grass to fill in the spot.  They seem to be taking hold and doing well.  He cares a lot about the yard.  Also along the front of the house where we weeded and realigned the plantings it was bare and he did the same thing there.  So he is feeling good lately.  He likes to sit in the back and watch the squirrels jump around in the trees and the lizards crawl all around the garage and deck and flirt with each other.

He teaches the new member lessons on Sunday and is good at it.  He always has stories that keep their interest and new viewpoints to the same old stuff everyone knows already.

We are trying to lose our winter weight and are having mixed success.  We both want to lose about 10-15 pounds and have each lost about 5 or so.  Gotta keep on it and it will work.  We started on Sparkpeople but Dad didn't like keeping such close tabs on what he eats.  He and I both figure if he just stays off the evening snacks he will be pretty good.  We will see.  If we get too strict we don't want to do it, right?  So he has dessert when we have the missionaries over and serve something, but he doesn't have seconds and thirds later.

So that's about all that is happening with us.  We are happy and healthy and grateful for all of our precious family.

Well we went to Utah and are back again and how do I describe how much WONDERFUL FUN it all was?  We got to visit with everyone and even friends so that we feel filled with happiness.

It was so good to see Atticus baptized.  He is such a sweet, wonderful little boy.  And a new cub scout!

There was a roomful of people and most of our family were able to come to see Atticus.  Colin even came to video the group and let some people talk to Atticus on the video.  We didn't do it because I usually cry at things like that.  There were yummy treats and it was so fun to get to see everyone there and visit with James' family. He has some relatives nearby that his mom and her husband were staying with and they came and made the occasion even more special.  James' mom is a great lady that I like a lot.  I wish now that I had taken more pictures, but I spend too much time visiting and having a good time to think of it till it's too late.

We stayed with Heidi and her family which was nice.  We got to see Atticus more than we would have otherwise.  Here he is eating boiled peanuts with his dad.  It's a southern thing.  He loves them.  I remember that Dad told me he liked them but he swears that he has never tasted them.  What's happening to my memory?

We got there Thursday morning and Heather picked us up at the airport and took us to put our stuff away at Heidi's and then we went to lunch.  We hung out with Heather and talked about her plans to move here in the fall.  She will pack up everything between now and the last of September and have it all ready to put in a Uhaul that she and Dad will drive here.  He will fly out to patch up her wall where they attached the TV when she moved in.  She is good at cleaning so she should get a lot of her deposit back.
Then in the afternoon we went to meet who could come to the Chuck a Rama dinner that Heidi and James had arranged.  It was great to get to see Kathy and Lisa there and visit some.

Friday we had lunch at Mike's house and got to see him and his family.  What a great family!  I love being with them.  Raylyn is now RS president and doing a wonderful job as we would expect.  That's a job just made for her and her talents and sympathies.  Mike is happy in his job and the kids are growing too fast!  Aubrey is a teenager now!!  And beautiful.  Ella is still in clogging and happy as usual and Henry seems to be much more confident and happy and adjusted well to his diabetes.  It was good to hear what they have been doing.

In the evening we met Erin and went to dinner at the Med, a little Mediterranean restaurant where we had sumptuous food.   It was good to catch up with what she is doing and see how great she looks and feels.  She has been working hard at taking care of herself and it is paying off.  She inspired us to try harder and so now we are hoping to lose some inches and get stronger before the summer with all its yard work.

Saturday morning was the baptism!!  Good to see everyone there.  What a great day.  So very satisfying in so many ways.

And then we went to Roy with Kathy and Lisa to a barbecue at Lisa's mom's house.  We got to meet all her family!  What nice people.  We had a great time getting acquainted with everyone and eating more than we should have.  It was all delicious.  And we also got to see Tyler and Grace there too and visit a little.  Grace is gorgeous and looks happy and Tyler is just as gracious as he always has been.  There's never enough opportunity to get in enough visiting.

Sunday was church and dinner with Bennetts.  For dinner James made cheesy grits along with other things, but I ate way too much of the cheesy grits!  Oh they were good!  And we got to visit more.  For a special treat in the evening Atticus wanted to play a game that I can't remember the name of that was fun.

Monday we went to see Kristin and hang out till lunch.  We learned all about what her family is up to and then learned that Kelli Riley is just around the corner from her there in Alpine!  When all the time I thought she was in Heber.  They get together regularly.  At noon we went out to meet the Rileys at a restaurant.  What fun to see them again!  They have moved to Utah and are staying at present with Mike in Syracuse which is just above Salt Lake.  They are finally retired but Bro Riley will be working with Mike in his electrical business.  Mike has started his own business now.  Sis Riley is looking for things to do with herself besides hang out with grandchildren.  It has taken me a long time to decide what to do with myself so I have total sympathy with her.  I think I have found some good things to do now and am pretty happy with them.  But you have to decide for yourself what is meaningful to you.  No one else's ideas work.

Monday we went to the Oasis for lunch and had wonderful food!! I love that place.  And then Heidi and I went to the fabric store and got some things to make her some tops and skirts, and then time got away and I left her in a mess with a shirt try-on half done.  But she was better at getting it figured out than I was so I think she will be fine.  We got on the plane and came home.  And it was over.  What a very special, satisfying time we had.

Back into the routine with temple Wednesday mornings, literacy with Da Wu on Thursday morning, and then stake conference this past weekend.  We learned some disturbing information about pornography at the conference.  They said children as young as 5 to 8 are receiving pornography from 10 and 11 year olds.  So young!!  What a destructive epidemic.  It's so important to be careful with our children.  One family told the stake president they knew their son was safe because they had so many protections on their electronics, but then later learned that he had been walking down the street and using the neighbor's wifi to download porn and then he would watch it later in his bedroom.  The only protection is to help them understand how destructive it is and how to avoid it.

On a happier note, Dad substituted for a temple worker Friday and I went too and before his shift started we did 13 baptisms and confirmations and the same 13 initiatories and then I did two endowments while he was working.  What a wonderful day!  I was full of joy the whole day.  I didn't used to enjoy the temple but now since we have started working there I do really feel so much joy when I am there.  It's a pleasure to walk in the door and spend the day helping people and feeling the joy there.  That's one way I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus are supremely happy beings.

Another thing that we learned was that the Riley's old friends the Haineses are now in our temple presidency.  What a surprise!  I wondered briefly when I heard their names. I didn't really think it was possible, but it is.  I'll have to mention it to Sis Haines one day.

And the very good news is that we get to see Adam again!!  He is back in Dallas doing more training and we get to go see him tomorrow!  Lara will be able to go this time too which we are glad for because of her delightful company of course, but also because she can be the guide through all the streets and traffic with her trusty gps.

The talk didn't kill me even though I felt like I was going to faint.  Why is it so scary to talk in front of nice people?  And it was fun to hang out with Barneys for Pi/Pie day.

Dad's cough is still hanging on but he's feeling so much better we aren't worried about it anymore.

The party at Moshan and Monsour's house was fun with many of our ESL students there.  It was Norouz  or the beginning of Spring for them.  They have a special table with the specific things on it to represent the things they want to come in the new year.  Candles, mirror, certain seeds and spices, fruit, eggs, flowers, and so on.  And it was fun to visit and eat everyone's dishes.

Our Easter was meaningful and satisfying.  I was to give the lesson to the Beehives that day and had been preparing the lesson on "how do we show our faith in Jesus Christ" and it was a wonderful experience preparing and reading and trying to see what would be the right thing to present as I teach.  I gained a deepened appreciation for my Savior and His love for us and His great, merciful gift.  We just can't do enough in our lives to show our gratitude, but we can trust Him to know what will make us happiest and trust that He understands when we try to do as He says.

Lara invited us over for dinner and we had a lovely meal and a happy visit.  I made a bunny cake for dessert that was fun.  Jon can't eat eggs so we substituted garbanzo bean juice for the eggs and the cake was tender and tasty.  Instead of coconut on the bunny I shaved some white candy coating and it came out curly and really pretty.  I think there was as much icing and candy on it as there was cake, but that's okay too.

The day before we had made chocolate marshmallow eggs with Sarah and her friend.  I made the whole batch of marshmallow and I had forgotten how much it makes.  We had marshmallow all over the place and when I poured it into the molds it came out fast and there were some mutant eggs to deal with, but no problem.  We put chocolate on them and they were fine anyway.  It's fun to do happy things.

And the most wonderful thing happened this week!  Adam came to Dallas on a business trip to help train some people in the office that will be opening there soon and we got to see him!  It has been way too long since we have seen him and it was worth the trip to Dallas to get to have dinner with him and visit some.  We went to a restaurant that he had chosen from the ones in the area.  It's called the Magic Time Machine.

It was a fun place with the wait staff dressed as cartoon characters and a sassy attitude.  The waitress we had was Joy from the movie Inside Out.  She was really cute and fun to watch.  Perfect choice for our little meeting.  It was so GOOD to see Adam.  He looks great and is happy and successful in his new job and responsibilities.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone at the reunion that is in the works now.  It isn't fun to be away from family.  And it's SO good to be together.  We are really excited about seeing all the Utah family next week!

Today I give a talk in Sacrament meeting.  And tomorrow we will go to Lara's to celebrate "Pie Day" with her apple pie and some ice cream.  :o)  So things are good.

Dad and I have had colds but are getting better.

It's a beautiful day today with warm breezes and sunshine.  A perfect time of year.  Wish you were all here.

What I wanted to talk about was something that I experienced a few weeks ago.  We went to an Empty Nester's family home evening and met a couple that we didn't know before.  The sister was wearing just any old thing, hair askew, no attempt at makeup.  Obviously didn't care about her appearance at all.  You can tell I wasn't very impressed with her.  And then we started talking.  They as a couple have taken in several young people from other countries and helped them get a start here.  They are currently fostering a young woman from Vietnam and will keep her with them through high school and college.  (She is a dear young woman in our YW organization.)  And the sister herself has been a major influence in helping many others do the same thing.  She is a GIANT of a woman.  I was reminded of the movie Shallow Hal where he saw everyone as they really were inside.  I was so sorry to have judged her so quickly and so negatively just from her appearance.  I wish I could dislodge that tendency from my heart and mind and allow people to disclose their real selves as they wish, not prejudging.

I am remembering that experience as I prepare to talk today.  Please let me set aside judgement.  Please let me see people as they really are and care for them and about them as they deserve.  Everyone has a right to determine who they want to be and how they want to be as do we.  They have no responsibility to fit my expectation of what they should be.

And now, good news for me.  The ESL class is permanently disbanded.  We decided that it was no longer serving the students because most have other English classes and are very busy.  Also the new teacher that was going to take over can only teach 2 months so why start?  So this is a picture of the most faithful students.

Second from left is Igal Mozes from Israel who still wants to be connected to us.  We are willing because he is delightful.  But I don't enjoy teaching English so it will be social only.  I will start the reading class with Da this week.

Monday night Barneys came over for a s'mores party and visiting.  It was a pleasant night and we had a good time.  Sam wanted mostly to rest inside and Sarah spent most of her time playing.  

 And Tuesday was Lara's birthday with a nacho dinner and a carrot cake.  That was fun too!

Tomorrow is the birthday of two very special people (Alice and Atticus!) and Tuesday we have the missionaries to dinner, Wednesday the temple will be open and we will be back to work there, Thursday I have a mammogram appointment, Friday we will have dinner at the house of our ESL couple Moshan and Monsour with the rest of the ESL class, and Saturday looks like Jared Collins' birthday.  So a nice full week of good things is ahead.

We are looking forward to seeing everyone there in Utah soon since we already have our plane tickets!  We will arrive early Thursday April 7 and leave Tuesday April 12.  We love you every one!

I went for a walk this morning because it was a perfect day for it.  It was overcast and 69 degrees; there was no sun to make it too warm and there was a pleasant breeze.  Dad was still printing out his genealogy sheets so I took off alone.  We have a lot of sidewalks that go through greenery--lots of trees and bushes to look at and birds and squirrels.  I loved it because it's spring and there were blossoms that I remember since I was little here.  Along the sidewalk were lots of dewberry vines that were coming into flower.  I remember going into Mr Beezley's field behind our house in north Houston and surveying acres of dewberry blossoms that would eventually turn into delicious dewberries.  One summer we picked gallons and gallons of them and enjoyed every one.  My mom made a pie that was out of this world and she bottled lots of them too.  They mostly turned into juice but it was delicious as well.

See all the little white blossoms?  They will each turn into a delicious berry!  They will probably be picked before they even get ripe by all the kids that will pass by them, but that's okay too.

And as I reached the end of my walk there was a wonderful fragrance in the air!  I remember it from long ago too.  I looked all around and finally found this vine that I don't know the name of that has little yellow trumpet flowers that smell beautiful.

Maybe it's the vine we had growing on the side of the deck on Cloud Way.  Do you remember that vine that was by the kitchen window?  It made me happy to smell that remembered fragrance.

When I came home I made some potato salad for lunch and made some whole wheat bread just to have handy for toast.  I slice it and freeze it so I can break off a slice when I want it.  I eat it with butter and bottled peaches from our little tree in Orem.  I'll be really sad when they're all gone.

Now Dad is working in the front yard, getting the patch smoothed out where we took out a little tree.

 He will plant some grass stolons and cover them with good stuff and we hope it will grow and look beautiful.  :o)  The azalea is making me very happy with big fuchsia blooms.  The other little ones we bought are covered with little buds, one white, and one red.  I'm so glad they decided to bloom this year!

I love the color and the shape of these blossoms!  I just hope it will fill in some more this summer.  We pruned it fairly severely in the fall because it was all over the place.

So I guess it's just another day in paradise for us.  :o)